La Mesa, California.
Typical home $881,814 (+2.2% in a year), asking rent $2,627 (+1.0%). San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,565 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $18,899 +2%
- $862,916$881,814 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $153,883 +21%
- $727,931$881,814 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- La Mesa$4,628
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in La Mesa, CA rose 2.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in La Mesa, CA rose 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in La Mesa runs $3,442/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $3,676 in May 2024.
That is $6,069 a month against $2,627 rent: a $4,628 mortgage payment, plus $496 property tax and $944 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — La Mesa
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$6,069
- Renting$2,627
- Mortgage only$4,628
Property tax · $496/mo 0.68% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for San Diego County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $944/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in La Mesa, San Diego County, California
La Mesa is a city of 61,121 people in San Diego County. Half its households earn more than $95,028 a year and half less, against $106,268 across San Diego County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 48% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 52% are rented. Unemployment in La Mesa was 4.7% in August 2026, and San Diego County had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. La Mesa is a city in San Diego County, home to a population large enough to feel like a full community of its own. Households here earn less than the county's typical household, and most homes are rented rather than lived in by their owners. Many adults hold a four-year degree, and the winters are mild, with little or no snow and not much rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, restaurants and hotels, and shops. Grossmont Hospital, La Mesa-Spring Valley Schools and Target are among the largest workplaces in the city. The county has seen slightly fewer jobs than a year earlier, and a good number of residents work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away is Balboa Park, a large city park that also holds museums such as the San Diego Museum of Art. The San Diego Zoo is also a short drive away, and a longer drive brings you to Cabrillo National Monument, a protected area on the coast.
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- 25,038households
- 41%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 18%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. San Diego County had 1,535,067 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 68° and lows near 42°; warmest in August, with highs near 89° and lows near 65°. About 12 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the El Cajon weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in La Mesa
- Grossmont HospitalGeneral hospital3,032FTE
- La Mesa-Spring Valley SchoolsSchool district1,234FTE
- SodexoBuilding cleaning maintenance363
- Alvarado Parkway InstitutePsychiatric hospital292FTE
- TargetDiscount department stores265
- WalmartDiscount department stores255
- Helix High DistrictSchool district220FTE
- Helix Water DistrictWater treatment and distribution179
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,857 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in La Mesa’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on San Diego County and the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA metro.
La Mesa home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- La Mesa$881,814
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 La Mesa listings, and the typical home goes pending in 22 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- La Mesa30.85%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- La Mesa22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- La Mesa184
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- La Mesa64
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- La Mesa$874,691
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- La Mesa100.20%
Zip codes with a La Mesa address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls La Mesa — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in La Mesa
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 91942 | La Mesa | 41,424 | $2,640 | $806,501 |
| 91941 | La Mesa | 33,218 | $2,545 | $1,021,021 |